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MAC COUN'S 

torical Geography 



OF THE 



United States 



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AN 



Historical Geography 



OF THE 



United States 



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" We may here trace 
and consult the testimon'e 




MAC COUN 



s growth to the very elements of its origin 



NEW YORK 
TOWNSEND MAC COUN 

1SS9 



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Copyright, 1889 
By TOWNSEND MAC COUN 



PREFACE, 



Historical Geography is in the realm of Political History. 
Its province is to draw a map of a country as it appeared after 
each of the different changes it has gone through, and then point 
out the historical causes which have led to the changes on the 
map. 

This I have endeavored to do, so far as our own country is con- 
cerned, in the simplest and shortest way, always employing in 
each series of maps the same color to represent the same thing, 
that each step may be clearly traced by the eye. If it shall con- 
tribute in any measure to develop or stimulate an interest in our 
national history its end will have been accomplished. 

I wish to acknowledge the assistance rendered by many of our 
Historical Societies during the preparation of these maps, and the 
courtesy extended in the use of the sixteenth century map draw- 
ings by Justin Winsor, in his " Narrative and Critical History of 
America," and to R. H. Labberton for some of his maps. 
New York, April 12, 1889. 



LIST OF MAPS. 



DISCOVERY. 

Date. 

I474. — TOSCANELLI'S MAP : 

European idea of the West before Columbus sailed. 

15 16. — Leonardo Da Vinci's Map. 
1530. — The Sloane Manuscript. 
1541. — Mercator's Map. 
1541. — Spanish Exploration of New- 
Mexico. 
-Zaltieri's Map. 

COLONIAL PERIOD. 

— King James Patent. 
r Virginia Company. 

-\ Council of Plymouth for 

I New England. 

— Foreign Claims to the Atlan- 
tic Slope. 

— Foreign Claims to the Atlan- 
tic Slope. 

— English Colonies as Consti- 
tuted by their Charters. 
Subdividing the Charters of 
1609 and 1620. 

— Grants to the Duke of York. 

-1763. — French Explorations and 
Posts in the Mississippi Val- 
ley. 

— English Colonies during the 
French and Indian War. 



1566. 

1606. 

1609. 
1620. 

1640. 
1655. 
1660, 



1664 
1650 



!7 6 3 



Drainage Map of the United 
States. 

NATIONAL GROWTH. 

1755-1763. — Spanish, French, and Eng- 
lish Divisions of North Am- 
erica DURING THE FRENCH AND 

Indian War. 

1763-1783. — Result of the French and 
Indian War. 

1783. — Boundaries Proposed by France 
for the United States at 
the Second Treaty of Paris. 

1783. — Various Lines discussed at the 
Second Treaty of Paris. 

1783. — Maine Boundary : Finally Set- 
tled by the Treaty of Wash- 
ington in 1842. 

1783-1801. — Result of the Revolu- 
tion. 

1801-1803. — Spain Cedes Louisiana to 
France. 

1803-1821. — Result of the Louisiana 
Purchase. 

1821-1845. — Result of the Florida 
Purchase. 

1845-1848. — The Annexation of Texas 
and Acquisition of the Ore- 
gon Country. 



LIST OF MAPS. 



Date. [ Date. 

1848-1853. — The Result of the Mexi- j 1830.- 
can War. 1840.- 

1853-1889. — The Gadsden Purchase 

and Russian Cession. i 1840.- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COM- 
MONWEALTH. 

I 775- I 7 S 3- — Th e Original States dur- 
ing the Revolution. 

1783. — The Land Claims of the Orig- 
inal States. 

1787. — The Original Public Domain. 
Shows also the Cessions of 
the States to the General 
Government. 

1790. — United States. 

1S00. — United States. 

18 10. — United States. 

1820. — United States. 



1850. 
1854. 
1861. 
1863. 
1861. 
1870. 



-United States. 

-East Half of the United 

States. 
-West Half of the United 

States. 
-East Half of the United 

States. 
-West Half of the United 

States. 
-Civil War. The Southern 

Confederacy. 
-East Half of the United 

States. 
-West Half of the United 

States. 
-West Half of the United 

States. 
-West Half of the United 

States. 



UNVEILING A NEW WORLD 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



1512. 1516. 




DA VINCI, 1512-1516, 

AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF SOUTH AMEHICA AND FLORIDA. 



1530. 




THE SLOANE MANUSCRIPT, 1530, 

AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC AND CONQUEST OF MEXICO. 



1541. 




MERCATOR'S MAP, 



FROM NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMER 



1640. 




1655. 




1660. 




1664. 





FRENCH 
EXPLORATIONS AND POSTS. 

Marquette & Joliet's Route, in 1673 «*^ 
La Salle's Route to Ft. Crevecoeur 

and return, 1679 

La Salle's Route from F'. . St. Louis 

to the Gulf, 16S2 

Hennepin's Route, 1600 



^jOngituSe West 85 from Greenwich 



1763. 




ENGLISH COLONIES, 

1763. 



New Jersey afterlSW. 
Pennsylvania after 10S1. 

(Xorth half embraced in the Connecticut Charter.) 
Massachusetts after 1691. 
Xew Hampshire after 1601. 
Connecticut, 1664— 1774, {Charter embraces north half 

' arter.) 
Rhode Island, 1C64. 
Carolina, 1665. 
Georgia, 1733. 
S. Carolina, 1670. 



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ORIGINAL STATES, 

1775—1783. 

TIME OF THE REVOLUTION. 

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HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE 
UNITED STATES. 



EXPLANATORY TEXT. 



FINDING A CONTINENT. 

(Sixteenth Century Work.) 

The last half of the fifteenth century was one of great change 
in Europe. England had given up her claims to the North of 
France, and had grown strong at home ; France, under Louis XL, 
had attained about the same limits as to-day ; Spain, under Ferdinand 
and Isabella, was the leading power in Europe; Portugal, shut off 
from the rest of Europe, " a people living by the sea," naturally led 
in conquest and colonization out of Europe ; the Pope was the 
head of the Church and the Church ruled all kings. 

Scientific men had long maintained that the world was round. 
Ancient writers (Ptolemy) expressed a belief in lands beyond the Pil- 
lars of Hercules. Plato's " Atlantis," the " Islands of the Blest," and 
" St. Brandan's Isle " of the Middle Ages were popular beliefs. The 
Portuguese had found Madeira (1419) ; the Fortunate Islands (Ca- 
naries, 143 1) of the ancients, discovered by the Carthaginians but 
practically lost to Europe for thirteen hundred years ; then the 
Azores (1448) and Cape Verd Islands (1454) ; finally the way to India 
via the Cape of Good Hope (1487). 

In 1474 (see Map) Toscanelli, the eminent Italian astronomer, in 



2 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

answer to a letter of inquiry, sent Columbus a map showing China 
to be only 52 west of Europe (it is 231 ). This was the most intel- 
ligent scientific idea of that day. By faith, eighteen years later, Co- 
lumbus sailed into "The Sea of Darkness" expecting to reach China 
by a westward sail of 3,000 miles (it is 9,000). At that distance he 
did reach islands (1492), which he called San Salvador, Juanna 
(Cuba), and Hispanola (Hayti). Supposing them to be near Zipanga 
(Japan), islands reported by Marco Polo to be off the east coast of 
China, he called them the West Indies, their inhabitants Indians, 
and then returned to Europe to tell of a western road to India. 

Then the spirit of discovery ran high among the maritime pow- 
ers. John and Sebastian Cabot, under English commissions, first 
discovered the main land (1497) near Cape Breton and sailed south 
along the coast probably as far as Cape Hatteras. 

Cortereal and Denys, both French, in 1501 and 1506, reached the 
coast of Nova Scotia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Bacallaos (New- 
foundland), a name found on many early maps. Twenty-five years 
later (1534), Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence, to where Quebec 
now stands. It was a century later before either England or France 
formed a permanent settlement. Spain continued her search for 
gold. The northern part of South America was visited (1798), Cuba 
and Hayti were made a base of supplies and the conquest of the New 
World began. 

In 1513, Ponce de Leon, landing near the mouth of the St. John's 
River, gave the name of Florida to the country, then coasted along 
the whole peninsular and up the west coast as far as 27 30'. (See 
Map ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci within the next year or two, 
showing South America, Florida, and Bacallaos as islands on the 
coast of Asia.) 

The same year (15 13), Balboa, climbing the mountains of the Isth- 
mus of Darien, discovered an ocean to the south which he called the 
South Sea (Pacific), a name which it retained for more than a century 
in all the early charters. 

In 15 19, an expedition under Cortez, sent to discover the strait 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 3 

supposed to exist connecting the two seas, resulted in the conquest 
of Mexico. 

In 1523 the search was continued along the west coast of Florida. 
It was found that no strait existed but the geography of the Gulf of 
Mexico was determined. Meanwhile, other Spaniards were tracing 
the coast from the St. John's River, northward to Cape Race. (One of 
the earliest maps showing the result is the Sloane Manuscript of 1530.) 

All attempted settlements proving disastrous, Philip II., in 1561, 
declared there should be no further attempts to colonize either the 
Gulf or Atlantic coasts. (What an effect this decree probably had 
on the fate of this continent !) The next year, however, when French 
Calvinists commenced the only French settlements ever attempted in 
French Florida, Spain, actuated by religious zeal, destroyed them, 
and as a military necessity built St. Augustine (1565). 

After the conquest of Mexico, Spanish explorations were made 
along the Pacific coast, but it took sixty years to reach Cape Men- 
docino, only to find in a harbor near by a post set up by Drake in 
1579, claiming the country for England and Queen Elizabeth. Cor- 
onado, in search of the " Seven Cities of Cibola," explored the Zuni 
country in New Mexico in 1541, and penetrated even to Quivira 
(supposed to have been in Western Kansas or Nebraska). Later the 
country was occupied and a mission established at Santa Fe (1580). 
(See Maps of 1541.) The generally accepted idea now came to be 
that America was a continent. This is expressed in the Zaltieri 
Map of 1566. Thus was the unveiling of the New World to Europe 
the work of a hundred years. The Sixteenth Century closed with 
but two settlements within the present limits of Our Republic, St. 
Augustine (1565) and Santa Fe (1580), both Spanish. 

GEOGRAPHY OF THE NEW WORLD. 

(See Drainage Map.) 

The boundaries of nations are usually natural, not arbitrary. 
Mountains obstruct the drift of population. The possession of the 



4 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mouth of a river carries with it the country it drains. A break in a 
mountain chain becomes the highway of travel. Geography deter- 
mines history. 

The portion of North America occupied by our Republic is di- 
vided into three geographical parts : 

The Atlantic Slope, with its numerous rivers and harbors, open 
toward Europe, shut off from the rest of the continent by the con- 
tinuous Appalachian range. These mountains — pierced only by the 
Hudson and its branch the Mohawk, the Delaware, the Susque- 
hanna, the Potomac, and the James — became a natural boundary, 
and these rivers lines of historical development. 

The Pacific Slope. An elevated plateau between the Rocky and 
Sierra Nevada ranges, with an abrupt descent to the sea. Few har- 
bors, and but two river systems, the Colorado and the Columbia, 
both, however, historic. 

The Great Interior Plain, stretching from the Rocky to the 
Appalachian Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the far north, 
netted with systems of waterways, which reach its remotest corners, 
and almost mingle their headwaters. 

Into this plain the St. Lawrence and its chain of great lakes from 
the Atlantic, and the Mississippi and its affluents from the Gulf of 
Mexico, form magnificent highways, inviting the coming of the na- 
tions. To the southwest is the Basin of the Rio Grande, a natural 
boundary ; to the north the Winnipeg system or Arctic Slope. 

THE COMING OF THE NATIONS. 

The sixteenth century marked the rise of the Spanish power in 
America, but the great battle for the supremacy was not to be fought 
by Spain. The seventeenth century opens with new contestants. 
The Dutch Republic (William of Orange) had broken the Spanish 
yoke in the Netherlands. France (Henry of Navarre) had freed 
herself from Spanish claims. With the destruction of the Armada 
(1588) England (under Elizabeth) became Mistress of the Seas. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 

Spanish supremacy died with Philip II. (1598). Each nation hast- 
ened to plant its colonies on our shores. 

England, in 1606, granted charters to two commercial companies, 
known as the London and Plymouth companies, dividing between 
them "that part of America commonly called Virginia and other 
parts and territories in America" lying between 34 and 45 of north 
latitude, a narrow strip extending inland one hundred miles. 

The Plymouth Company might make a settlement anywhere be- 
tween 38° and 45 . The London Company between 34 and 41 \ 
Neither were, however, to make a settlement within 100 miles of one 
already made by the other. 

It was under this patent, known as " King James Patent of 1606 " 
(see Map, 1606), that the first permanent English settlement in this 
country was made by the London Company, at Jamestown in 1607. 
This patent proving unsatisfactory, a new charter was granted to the 
London Company, called the "Virginia Charter of '1609 " (see Map, 1609- 
1620), bounding it to that space of land between a point 200 miles 
north and south of Point Comfort, (34 to 40 ) extending "west and 
northwest " throughout from sea to sea. 

In 1620 the king reorganized the Plymouth Company as the 
Plymouth Council for New England, extending their charter limits from 
the line of the Virginia Company (40 ) on the south to the 48° on the 
north and from sea to sea. 1 

Under this charter the Puritans, separatists from the Church of 
England, landed at Plymouth (1620) and, as Lodge remarks, "there 
founded a democratic republic by the famous compact of the May- 
flower, the vanguard of a great column bearing a civilization and a 
system of government which was to confront the other system 
founded faraway to the south on the rivers of Virginia." 

France established her first permanent colonies in the country at 
Port Royal in Arcadia (1604), Quebec (1608), and Montreal (161 1). 
These settlements secured the control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

J Nearly half of this territory was claimed by the French, and held by them under the 
Arcadia Charter of 1603 until tneir American empire fell in 1763. 



6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and the highway to the interior of the continent. Prevented by the 
hostile Iroquois nation from penetrating south of, or following the 
Great Lakes, they ascended the Ottawa, crossing its portage to Lake 
Huron as early as 1615 (five years before the landing of the Pil- 
grims). The next few years led to the discovery of Lake Superior 
(1629) and Lake Michigan (1634). Thus did France reach the heart 
of the continent when Winthrop was founding Boston and Lord 
Baltimore was planting St. Mary's on the Chesapeake. 

Holland took possession of the Hudson River Valley. A settle- 
ment was made at New Amsterdam (New York), on Manhattan Island, 
in 1614 and one at Fort Orange (Albany) in 1615. Trading posts 
were pushed east to the Connecticut, west along the Mohawk, 
south to Delaware Bay. (See Map, 1640.) The colony was entirely a 
commercial one, admirably well planted on two of the great rivers 
which, penetrating the mountains, were later to become historic lines 
of emigration and traffic to the West. A commercial supremacy was 
established thus early which, on account of geographical reasons, has 
always been retained, though it has been a Dutch Municipality, an 
English Royal Province, an American Commonwealth. 

Sweden, then at the height of its power under Gustavus Adolphus, 
also had its colonial policy. Forming settlements on both sides of 
the lower Delaware she disputed its possession with the Dutch. But 
a Swedish State in the New World was not to be realized. 

When New England pushed the Dutch back from the Connecti- 
cut River in 1650 to the Hudson Valley the Dutch retaliated by 
seizing the Swedish settlements on the Delaware, and Swedish rule 
in America disappears with the year 1655. (See Map, 1655.) 

EARLY ENGLISH COLONIES. 

(If 07v Our States Commenced.) 

England never recognized the validity of the French and Dutch 

claims, though Holland, a Christian nation, had previously so located 

its settlements as to confine the New England sea to sea charter, made 

in 1620, to verv narrow limits. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 7 

The Virginia Company and Council for New England could issue 
grants within their charter limits, but only a charter from the Crown 
could confer powers of government. 

The groups of northern and southern colonies were within and 
followed the geographical limits of the Virginia and New England 
charters of 1609 and 1620. 

Division of New England. 

(See Map, 1660.) 

Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth, 
in 1620, did so unintentionally, having expected to go farther south. 
They remained without authority, obtaining from the Council for; 
New England the following year " a roving patent," that is, power to 
settle without prescribed limits. 

In 1628 a grant was made them of the Maine country, between the 
Piscataqua and Kennebec Rivers, extending inland 120 miles. Then 
a new patent was given embracing the Cape Cod country, bounded 
west by a line north from the mouth of the Narragansett River, and 
north, by an east and west line from Cohasset Creek. 

Pemaquid. In T621 the Council granted to Sir William Alexander, 
Earl of Sterling, the French possessions of Arcadia between the St. 
Croix and St. Lawrence Rivers, to be called " The Lordship and 
Barony of New Scotland." A second grant was made him in 1635, 
of the country between the St. Croix and the Kennebec, called Pema- 
quid, together with the islands of Long (occupied by the Dutch), 
Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. 

New Hampshire. In 1629 the Council made a grant to Captain 
John Mason of that part of the main land between the mouth of the 
Merrimac River, Cape Ann and the mouth of the Piscataqua River, 
from the mouth of the Merrimac River, through the river and up 
into the country 60 miles, from which point to cross overland to the 
head of the Piscataqua River, 60 miles from its mouth. 

Massachusetts. In 1623 the Puritan leaders in England, fearing 
the result of the contest upon which they had entered with Charles 



8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

I., conceived the plan, under cover of a trading company, of estab- 
lishing a Puritan State in the New World. A grant was accordingly- 
obtained in the name of the Dorchester Colony, from the Council of 
New England, and a small settlement made at Salem. In 1629 the 
company was enlarged and a royal charter obtained under the title 
of the Massachusetts Bay Company, with powers of self-government. 
The boundaries of this royal grant were, all the land lying between a 
point three miles south of the southernmost poii\t of Charles River 
and Massachusetts Bay, and three miles north of the Merrimac River 
or any part thereof, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the South 
Sea (Pacific Ocean). 1 

The Puritan plans were well matured, large bodies of settlers 
under prominent leaders were sent out. Boston was founded (1630). 
Then the government of the company removed thither from England. 
A governor and representatives for each plantation were elected and 
by 1632 a fully organized representative commonwealth, a theocracy, 
was in operation. 

The Plymouth Council, overshadowed by their stronger and 
more prosperous neighbor, the Massachusetts Bay Company, and un- 
able to obtain a royal charter, in 1635 resigned their charter after 
first dividing the land among themselves into eight shares. The 
Province of Maine went to Sir Francis Gorges and in 1639 was con- 
firmed to him by royal grant, none of the others were ever confirmed. 

Rhode Island. As the population of Massachusetts Bay Colony 
increased, some for conscience sake, and many more from a desire to 
live beyond the restraint of law, moved beyond its charter limits. 
Thus was the Providence Plantation (1636) and Rhode Island Colony 
(1635) founded. They were united under a royal charter obtained in 
1644. Subsequently (1664) a new charter was obtained, extending the 
boundaries to their present limits. 

Connecticut. As the colonists pushed farther and farther from 
the coast, towns began to appear in the Connecticut Valley. In 1635 
1 Reference to the map will show that these limits were greatly prescribed by the pre- 
vious New Hampshire grant to Mason and the Dutch occupation on the west. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 9 

Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, called the Connecticut Colony, 
were founded, the settlers supposing for some years that they were 
within the Massachusetts Bay limits. Say brook was settled in 1636, 
the New Haven Colony in 1638. For mutual protection against the 
Dutch and Indians, representatives from these towns in 1639 formed 
a compact, a pure democracy, after which our present government 
was largely modelled. They, however, had no charter rights until 
1662, when Charles II. constituted the Connecticut Company, bound- 
ing it east by Narragansett Bay, north by the Massachusetts Planta- 
tions (42 2'), south by the sea, and west by the South Sea, ignor- 
ing the presence of the Dutch. 1 

Division of Virginia. 
(See Map, 1660.) 

Virginia. The London Company, richer than the Plymouth 
Company, controlled by those whose views were more in accord with 
the crown, made Virginia a colony much like the mother country. 

As the Puritans of New England, mostly burghers coming from 
the towns, based their government upon the town meeting, so the 
dominant element in the Southern colonies, being at first gentlemen 
from the shires, organized their local government on the model of 
the English shire or county system, and made allegiance to the Eng- 
lish church a basis of citizenship. Settlements took the form of 
large plantations, agriculture the employment, and in the same year 
(1620) that the Pilgrims landed in New England that they might be 
free, slaves were introduced to supply the laboring class. In 1624 
the charter was forfeited and Virginia became a royal province. 
Her territorial jurisdiction was continued but under a royal governor. 

In 1649 a grant was made to Lord Culpepper, but that was one of 
the soil only, not of jurisdiction. It embraced that section between 
the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers (Fairfax County). 

Carolana. In 1629 the king gave Sir Richard Heath, "as the 

1 Latitude 41°, where the line settled with New York touched the sea, was regarded 
as her southern line in all subsequent claims. 



IO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Province of Carolana," a sea to sea charter embracing two degrees of 
latitude (3o°-36°). Part of this was within the Virginia limits and 
the balance was that section claimed by France as French Florida. 
As no permanent settlement was made the charter lapsed a few years 
later. 

Maryland. In 1632 Charles I. granted Maryland, named in honor 
of the Queen, to Lord Baltimore. The limits of the grant were that 
section between latitude 40 (the southern boundary of the New 
England Company) and the Potomac River to its first fountain, and 
bounded on the east by Delaware Bay. The portion on the Delaware 
they found, however, in possession of the Swedes and Dutch. 

Here, on Chesapeake Bay, controlling the trade and highway 
through the mountains by both the Susquehanna and Potomac, 
Lord Baltimore founded the only single proprietary government on 
our shores and the only one established with entire religious freedom 
of worship. 

Middle States. 

Between these northern and southern groups of colonies, but 
within the limits of the New England charter of 1620, lay the terri- 
tory now occupied by our Middle States. 

New York. (See Map, 1664.) In 1664 Charles II. granted to his 
brother, the Duke of York, that portion of the east coast between the 
St. Croix and the Kennebec Rivers and the Islands of Nantucket and 
Martha's Vineyard (which the Duke had purchased the year before 
from the heirs of Sir Alexander) and the Hudson River, with the 
lands on either side from the Connecticut line on the east, to the 
Delaware on the west. Under this charter an English fleet at once 
seized the New Netherlands. Dutch sovereignty in the New World 
disappeared. Occupying, however, as it did, natural geographical 
boundaries, distinct from those of New England, it rendered the old 
sea to sea boundaries impossible and stamped its impress on our po- 
litical boundaries. The Dutch possessions on the Hudson, including 
Long Island, were at once named New York. 

New Jersey. On receipt of his grant the Duke sold that portion 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. II 

between the Hudson and the Delaware extending to 41 ° of north 
latitude to Lord John Berkeley and Sir John Carteret, to be known 
hereafter as New Ceasarea, or New Jersey. They divided it into East 
and West Jersey. The dividing line, surveyed in 1687, ran from Little 
Egg Harbor to about six miles nortli of the Delaware Water Gap. 

Delaware. When the Duke took New York he seized also the 
Dutch settlements on the west bank of Delaware Bay as part of the 
Netherlands. Although they were included in the Maryland grant, 
he held and governed it as part of New York until 1681 when he sold 
it to William Penn. 



THE NEXT ONE HUNDRED YEARS. 
{Adjustment of Boundaries, 1664-17 63.) 

The next one hundred years saw the rise of the great State of 
Pennsylvania, the Southern Colonies, the adjustment of many 
boundary lines, and the growth of the French power in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. 

The Carolinas. On the restoration of the Stuarts Charles II. 
rewarded the Earl of Clarendon, Duke of Albramarl, and other zeal- 
ous adherents with a grant (1665) of all the territory lying between 
30 30' and 29 of latitude and from sea to sea. 

This embraced, on the north, part of Virginia, and, on the south, 
the Spanish province of Florida. In 1670 this was divided by the 
Company into North and South Carolina. Ten years later (1680) a 
settlement was made on the Ashley River, called Charleston. The 
Carolinas occupied the same relation to Virginia that Rhode Island did 
to the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Companies. Malcontents 
had settled on the Chowan, pirates preying on Spanish commerce 
made Charleston their rendezvous and an impossible form of govern- 
ment produced so much irritation that in 1729 the proprietors sold 
both Carolinas to the Crown and they became royal provinces. 

Georgia. " The colonies actually founded present every variety of 
origin and motive, from the highest and most far-reaching purposes 



12 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of politics and religion to the small beginning of posts for the better 
prosecution of the fur trade. Among all these Georgia was the only- 
one to owe its foundations to charity." 1 

In 1732 General James Oglethorpe, a domestic reformer in Parlia- 
ment, devised a scheme for settling insolvent debtors in America. He 
obtained a grant of the land between the Savannah and Altamaha 
Rivers for twenty-one years. Savannah was founded (1733). The 
colony prospered and stood as a bulwark between the Spanish and 
Carolina settlements. Then it grew feeble, struggled on until the 
expiration of its charter, and was turned over to the Crown, the 
trustees feeling the scheme had been a failure. 

Virginia. Colonists were now beginning to find their way along 
the Upper Potomac to the country beyond the Blue Ridge. "In 
1738 the General Assembly created Augusta County, bounding it 
by the Blue Ridge on the east and on the west and northwest by 
the uttermost limits of Virginia." This country embraced the west- 
ern part of the grant to Penn. 

As this country also covered much territory claimed by the Six 
Nations, Virginia succeeded in 1744 in obtaining from them a deed 
covering the whole western country. This deed was as complete a 
title as the charter of 1609. 

Pennsylvania. English colonies now lined the whole Atlantic 
seaboard from Nova Scotia to Florida ; but one section, lying within 
the bounds of the Old Plymouth Company west of the Delaware, 
hitherto shut off by the Dutch occupancy, remained within the king's 
gift. This he gave to William Penn and called it Pennsylvania. It 
was to consist of all that tract bounded on the east by the Delaware 
River: north by the beginning of the 43 of north latitude: south 
by a circle drawn at twelve miles north of New Castle (Del.), and 
thence west at the beginning of the 40 of north latitude : west by a 
meridian line 5 west of the Delaware. 

When Penn took possession and founded Pennsylvania (1683) the 
vagueness of the expression the beginning of the 40° and 43 , and 

' Lodie. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 3 

-defective ideas of the geography of the country, a circle 12 miles north 
of New Castle not touching the 40th degree, led to serious contro- 
versies with all the adjoining colonies. If the beginning of the 
40° and 43 meant from the 40 to43° it would overlap the Massachu- 
setts (42°-43°) and Connecticut (4i°-42°) charters west of the Dela- 
ware (New York now claimed nothing west of the Delaware) and 
make his southern boundary considerably north of Philadelphia. If 
it meant the 39 to 42 it would still overlap the Connecticut charter 
on the north and most of the Maryland grant on the south. In either 
case its western boundary, 5 west of the Delaware, extended far into 
the Virginia county of Augusta. 

As Penn had purchased Delaware of the Duke of York and wished 
to control an outlet to the ocean he contended for the more south- 
erly boundary- The contest with Maryland lasted until 1760, when 
a compromise was effected. The Maryland line was moved to 39 
43' and two celebrated engineers, Jeremiah Mason and Charles Dixon, 
surveyed it west from the Delaware 244 miles. The line called after 
them was the nominal boundary for many years between the Free and 
Slave States. The French and Indian war postponed the controversy 
with Virginia and Connecticut to a later day. 

New Jersey. The grant of East and West Jersey proving unsat- 
isfactory to the king, owing to conflicting claims of the propiieturs 
and their heirs, James in 1689 compelled each to surrender their 
claims to the crown and he embodied them into one province New 
Jersey. 

New York. In 1684 the Duke of York, recognizing the command- 
ing position of the Iroquois and their claim to all the countrv from 
the mountains to the great lakes and the Mississippi, succeeded in 
persuading them to put themselves under his protection. The next 
year he came to the throne and New York became a royal province. 

In 1726 the Iroquois (Six Nations) conveyed to England in trust 
all their lands, under promise of protection. 

Massachusetts and the settlement of the New England bound- 
aries. In 1684 the English High Court of Chancery issued a writ de- 



14 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

priving the colony of its charter (of 1629), and of political and rep- 
resentative rights, vesting ail powers in the Crown. On the accession 
of William and Mary in 1688 a new policy of colonial consolidation 
was adopted, and a new charter (1691) given, more liberal than to 
most royal provinces. This charter confirmed the limits of the old 
charter of 1629 and included the Cape Cod country embraced in the 
Plymouth grant surrendered to the Crown in 1635, the province of 
Maine purchased by the Massachusetts Bay Company from the heirs 
of Sir Gorges, the Pemaquid tract acquired in 1686 and now con- 
firmed, and Nova Scotia. 

In 1696 Nova Scotia was made a separate royal province and the 
Massachusetts line was fixed henceforth at the St. Croix. 1 

Massachusetts now proceeded to claim all New Hampshire under 
the clause in its charter of 1629 making its northern limits three 
miles north of any part of the Merrimac River. Commissioners 
were chosen by the two colonies, but, failing to agree, it was referred 
to the king. He refused to place New Hampshire under the juris- 
diction of Massachusetts, deciding (1737) that the line between the 
States should run three miles north of the Merrimac and parallel to 
it from its mouth until it reached the most southernly point in its 
course, from which it should run due west until it met with His 
Majesty's other governments. This line was run in 1741, at which 
time, also, t he line on the Piscataqua was also settled. 

The boundary between New York was never settled until after the 
Revolution, though New York, after agreeing upon the 20 mile line 
with Connecticut in 1737, agreed in 1767 to an extension of the same 
with Massachusetts until it met the east and west line decided upon 
as the southern boundary between that colony and New Hampshire. 
Above that line, however, New York claimed to the Connecticut 
River. 

Rhode Island claimed the country of King Philip, east of Narra- 
gansett Bay, as did also Plymouth, and later Massachusetts, succeed- 

1 Arcadia was still held by the French and it was not until the Peace of Utrecht, 1713, 
that it was ceded to England. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 5 

ing to the claim by virtue of the Provincial charter of 1691. This 
dispute was referred, in 1741, to commissioners, who gave Rhode 
Island those towns on the east shore of the bay and Massachusetts 
the balance. 

Connecticut settled her boundary with Rhode Island in 1752. 
Her contest with New York lasted until within a few years (1881), 
though the line settled in 1683 and again in 1725 and 1737, twenty 
miles east of the Hudson, is practically the one of to-day. Its north- 
ern line, determined upon with Massachusetts in 17 13, included in 
the latter State the towns of Enfield, Suffield, Somers, and Wood- 
stock. In 1747, being taxed too heavily, they applied to Connecticut 
for admission into that commonwealth and Massachusetts gracefully 
gave them up. 

New France. 

(See Map, French Posts in the Mississippi Valley.) 

While England had established a continuous line of strong colo- 
nies along the Atlantic Slope, her great rival, France, had not been 
idle. With an open water-way by the St. Lawrence and the Great 
Lakes, with no natural barriers, a nation of traders in peltries had 
gone by short portages to the upper waters of the Mississippi and 
occupied the country in the name of their king. 

St. Maria (1668), the gateway to the northwest, and Green Bay 
(1669), in Wisconsin, were settled while the English were taking New 
York. A settlement was made at Fort Crevecoeur (Peoria, 1679) on 
the Illinois River, and the Mississippi had been followed to its mouth 
(1682) by the year Penn had laid the foundations of Philadelphia. 

With both great natural highways in her possession, New France 
wisely occupied its two great provinces : Canada, the country 
of the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes ; Louisiana, the valleys of the 
Mississippi and Ohio. Hence early in the eighteenth century we 
find Detroit, Fort Miami, and Fort Vincent, commanding the port- 
ages and Wabash Valley ; Kaskaskia (with a college and monastery 
in 1 721), Cahokia, and Fort Chartres, commanding the Upper Mis- 



1 6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sissippi and Missouri; New Orleans and Fort Rosalie (Natchez),, 
commanding the mouth of the Mississippi ; Niagara, Presque Isle 
(Erie), and Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg), the Lake Erie and Ohio route, 
geographically ail great natural strategic points. On the north, too, 
France had built Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, thus seizing 
the Lake Champlain and Richelieu route. In 1717, on the Spanish 
occupying Texas, France promptly fortified Natchitoches, thus mark- 
ing the limits of New France in that direction. 

Between these French and English empires stretched the Appala- 
chian range. Where a natural highway opens to the West along the 
Mohawk Valley stood the great confederacy of the Six Nations. 
Where the mountains ended at the South stood the Cherokee-Choctaw 
confederacy. One Iroquois, the other Algonquin, but both jealously 
guarding the occupation of their hunting-grounds. 

The year 1755 {see Map, 1755— 1763) finds the continent thus politi- 
cally divided. Spain occupies the lower Pacific Slope, the valley of 
the Rio Grande, Texas, and Florida. France holds the vast interior- 
basin, Canada, and Acadia; England, the Atlantic Slope. The time 
had now come when the question was to be decided whether the 
Teutonic (English) or Latin race (French), and all the ideas they ex- 
press, were to rule in America. The answer came on the Plains of 
Abraham in 1759. French rule fell as had the Dutch. When peace 
was concluded by the First Peace of Paris, in 1763, France gave to 
England all her possessions east of the Mississippi, excepting the 
Island of New Orleans at the mouth of that river. 

" Spain had taken part in the contest as an ally of France, Eng- 
land had captured Havana in the Island of Cuba, the very key to the 
Gulf of Mexico. To regain that Spain surrendered Florida to Eng- 
land, and received as a compensation from France all of her posses- 
sions on the Continent of North America that did not pass to England. 
The great result of the change was that England and Spain now 
divided North America, the Mississippi River being the only definite 
boundary between them." ' 

1 Hinsdale. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 1/ 



THE ENGLISH ASCENDENCY IN AMERICA. 
(See Map, 1763-1783.) 

With the acquisition of New France and Florida, England at 
once proceeded (1763) to organize that portion north of the St. 
Lawrence and the 45th parallel and east of Lake Huron into the 
Province of Quebec, the territory on the Gulf of Mexico into East 
and West Florida, divided by the Appalachicola River, with a northern 
boundary of the 31 parallel, from the Mississippi River to the Chat- 
tahoochee, then down that river to the Flint, thence to the St. Mary's, 
and the Atlantic Ocean. The next year she moved the 31 parallel 
line north to one parallel with the mouth of the Yazoo. That por- 
tion of ancient French Florida, debatable ground between England 
and Spain, was given to Georgia. All west of the mountains she set 
apart as an Indian domain, forbidding the intrusion of settlers. Five 
years later (1768), at Fort Stanwix, England made a treaty with the 
Six Nations, making what was afterward denominated "The Property 
Line," ' which was to be forever a dividing line between the English 
Colonies and the Indians. 

This line extended from Wood Creek, near Lake Oneida, to the 
head-waters of the Delaware, thence to the Susquehanna, thence west 
to Kittanning, on the Alleghany River, and so down the Ohio to the 
mouth of the Cherokee (Kanawha) River, where it met a line agreed 
upon in 1765 between the royal Governors of the Southern Colonies 
and the Cherokees, extending from the Kanawha to the source of the 
Savannah River, and hence to Florida. 

The Quebec Act was promulgated in 1774, extending the Prov- 
ince of Quebec to the Ohio and the Mississippi, thus preparing the 

1 "This treaty line was the means of keeping the Indians neutral during the first part 
of the Revolution. It was considered binding by the Colonies. The Declaration of In- 
dependence extended only to the line, and when the States afterward extended their 
boundaries they made a pretence at least of purchasing the land." — Mag. of Am. His. 

2 



1 8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

way for the establishment of interior Colonies dependent upon a 
government on the St. Lawrence rather than the Atlantic Slope. 

Virginia. To the Colonies the possession of the country west of 
the Alleghanies created a general desire to extend their limits westward. 
Settlers from Virginia began occupying the country south of the 
Ohio, west of the mountains. In 1776 it was organized into the 
County of Kentucky. Pennsylvania, pushing its limits westward, came 
into conflict with Virginia — a controversy which was not settled 
until the Revolution, when, to avoid weakening the common cause, 
commissions were appointed, and Pennsylvania was awarded her 
early charter limits of five degrees west from the Delaware. There 
a meridian line drawn from an extension of the Mason and Dixon line 
of 1760 to her northern boundary line should be her western boundary 
forever. (See Map, 17 75-1 783.) 

Connecticut as early as 1753 began the extension of her limits 
westward, under her charter of 1662. This involving claims to North- 
ern Pennsylvania led to a bitter contest of jurisdiction. In 1774 so 
great had been the emigration that Connecticut organized these set- 
tlements into the County of Westmoreland. The war interrupted the 
dispute, which was referred to the Continental Congress and decided 
by a Federal Court in 17S1 in favor of Pennsylvania. She, however, 
still asserted her claim beyond the Western Pennsylvania line to all 
between 41 and 42 2'. 

Hampshire Grants. {See Map, 1775-1783-) In I74 1 the king 
extended the jurisdiction of New Hampshire until it met the king's 
other grants. Claiming the same western limits as had been settled 
with Connecticut and was claimed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire 
claimed a line twenty miles east of the Hudson, what is now Ver- 
mont. Massachusetts claimed the same territory under her charter of 
j 629, under the interpretation of three miles north of the source of 
the Merrimac. New York insisted that the twenty mile line applied 
only to Connecticut and Massachusetts, and that north of that all 
west of the Connecticut River belonged to her under the grant of 
1664. The dispute was referred to the king in council, and in 1746 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 9 

he decided in favor of New York. Both New York and New Hamp- 
shire continued, however, to make grants until the Revolution, and 
when in 1777 New Hampshire adopted a Constitution and organized 
a State Government (1778) the contest was continued, nor was any 
decision reached until in 1791 Vermont was admitted to the Union as 
a separate State. 

CAUSES THAT LED TO INDEPENDENCE. 

The King's Prerogative, whereby the ownership of all newly dis- 
covered unoccupied lands become vested in the Crown (not in the 
Government), and under which settlers had only such rights as the 
king saw fit to bestow, had been the recognized law under which all 
the colonies held their charters, and in exercise of which the royal 
provinces were governed. Opposition to the exercise of this right 
was the corner-stone of the Liberal party, both in England and the 
colonies. 

Navigation Laws. The early grants to promote colonial settle- 
ments were to commercial companies, who fostered and protected the 
colonies, expecting to profit by their trade as they became populous 
and prosperous. 

England, at the dictation of this mercantile class, subsequent to 
1660 passed three statutes, known as the Navigation Laws and Acts of 
Trade. By the act of 1660 the colonies were restricted from selling 
their products, except to England or some other English colony, or 
from exporting goods by other than English or colonial ships. 

These regulations deprived the Colonists of the benefits of com- 
petition in the carrying trade and compelled them to send their 
goods to an already overstocked market. 

The Act of 1663 required all goods imported to be from England 
and carried on English-built ships. This compelled the paying of 
English prices and tended to destroy the ship-building interests of 
the colonies. 

The Act of 1672 prohibited intercolonial trade. 

Ail these acts acted as prohibitory to the establishment of manu- 



20 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

factures. As the English policy toward the colonies became mure 
and more one of protection for the English mercantile class, the lib- 
eral party espoused a policy of free trade. 

Under these laws, however, the colonies enjoyed English naval 
protection and the monopoly of the English home market, and as for 
the restrictions they evaded and disregarded them and grew rich. 

With the close of the war (1763), England, weighed down by the 
expense, made an attempt to raise a revenue from the Colonies. 
(The Stamp Act was one means adopted.) The liberal party (Whigs) 
refused to be taxed by a Parliament in which they neither had nor 
could have any representation. 

The English Board of Trade (one administrative branch of the 
government) now ordered the enforcement of the Navigation Laws 
enacted a century before, and these were to be enforced by Writs of 
Assistance, or general warrants, indefinite in time, authorizing search 
on suspicion without order of Court. 

The Colonies protested, conferred over the matter (Stamp Act 
Congress in New York, 1765) and prepared a Declaration of Rights. 
The English answer was The Declaratory Act "that the King, 
with the advice of Parliament, had full power to make laws binding 
America in all cases whatever." On attempts by the King to exercise 
his prerogative, Massachusetts issued a circular letter to the other col- 
onies and the Crown, which not being withdrawn when ordered in- 
structions were issued to deprive Massachusetts of its Govern- 
ment,, and ordering all Royal Governors to send political opposers 
to England for trial. This step, outlining a policy threatening the ex- 
istence of all the colonies, and the passage by Parliament of the Que- 
bec Act, depriving the colonies of their charter lands in the West, 
added to the indignation. An immediate call for a general Congress 
was issued and July 4, 1776, the representatives of the United States, 
in Congress assembled, declared "that these United Colonies are, 
and of right ought to be, Free, and Independent States." 

The war that ensued was not to gain freedom, but to preserve 
liberty and those democratic governments which they had already 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 21 

established. Their valor and endnran.ce fully entitled them to take 
a place among independent nations. 

A NEW NATION— ORIGINAL LIMITS. 

{See Map, 17 83-1801.) 

At the Second Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris, September 3, 1783, 
the Independence of the United States was acknowledged. France 
had helped the Colonies against England. Spain had helped France 
conditionally upon her retaining the two Floridas, if the end of the 
war found them in her possession. In the negotiations for peace 
France and Spain now united with England in trying to limit the new 
nation to the old geographical limits of the Alleghanies. (See Map, 
line as proposed by France.} 

Virginia troops during the war had taken the towns on the Illinois 
and Wabash Rivers, and Virginia had organized that portion into Illi- 
nois County ; besides, the Quebec Act had been one of the main griev- 
ances which led to the war, so the commissioners of the United States 
insisted upon the Mississippi as our western boundary. In the treaty 
as signed, England retained Canada and Nova Scotia, and Spain the 
Floridas. The boundaries of the United States were to be the St. 
Croix from its mouth to its source, thence by a line due north to and 
along the highlands dividing those rivers that fall into the River St. 
Lawrence from those falling into the Atlantic Ocean, to the north- 
west head of the Connecticut River; along the middle of that river 
to the 45 of latitude, thence due west to the St. Lawrence River, 
thence through the middle of that river and the Great Lakes north of 
Isles Royal and Philipeaux to Long Lake and the most northwesterly 
point of the Lake of the Woods, thence due west to the source of the 
Mississippi, thence down the middle of that river to the 31 parallel, 
thence due east to the Appalachicola River, thence to its junction 
with the Flint River, thence straight to the head of the St. Mary's 
River, thence down that river to the Atlantic Ocean. 

Ignorance of the source of the Mississippi and of the geography 



22 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of the Maine country delayed the definite settlement of portions of 
this line until the line was run west to the Rocky Mountains in 
1818, and the Treaty of Washington concerning the Maine boundary 
in 1842. 1 (See Map, Maine Boundary.') 

NATIONAL GROWTH. 

The United States began its national existence in 1787, with 
England as a neighbor on the north and northeast, and Spain on the 
west and south. Its western boundary was the middle of the Missis- 
sippi, but Spain by the possession of the Island of New Orleans held 
the mouth of the river. As the Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky region 
became settled, their commerce increased 2 until the absolute control 
of the entire eastern bank as a natural boundary became a necessity. 
Events were fast drifting toward its forcible seizure, when, in 1801, 
Spain, by secret treaty, ceded to France the Province of Louisiana 
with the same boundaries as ceded to her in 1763, a country stretch- 
ing from the mouth of the Mississippi to its farthest western sources, 
but with undefined limits to the west, southwest, or southeast. (See 
Map, 1801-1803.) This transfer was not known until after the Treaty 
of Peace between France and England, signed at Amiens in 1802. 
England, in alarm, broke the treaty of Amiens. To the United 
States the change of owners and the possible transfer of the armies 
of Napoleon to the Mississippi Valley made the possession of the 
Island of New Orleans more vital than before. 

The Louisiana Purchase. Negotiations were opened for the 
purchase of New Orleans. Napoleon, preparing to invade England, 
in want of funds, and unwilling that it should fall into the hands of 
England, offered to sell the whole province to us for fifteen millions. 
The purchase was made. Spain protested, but the treaty was signed, 

1 England never gave possession of the forts on the Great Lakes until after the nego- 
tiation of the Jay Treaty in 1795. 

2 All the products of these sections were then sent to market via the Mississippi, 
there being no roads over the mountains, the owners returning by ship to the Atlantic 
ports, and hence over the mountain trails. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 23 

April 30, 1803. France gave a quit claim to the Province of Loui- 
siana with the same extent it had in the hands of Spain in 1800, and 
that it had when previously possessed by France. What were these 
limits? {See Map, 1803-1821.) Louis XIV., in 1712, in granting the 
trade of the province to Antoine Crozat, bounded it by New Mexico 
and Carolina, and all the territory whose lakes or rivers emptied di- 
rectly or indirectly into the Mississippi or any of its branches. Our 
title, therefore, clearly gave us to the source of the Missouri and the 
Rocky Mountains. 

France furthermore had claimed the Texas country as far as the 
Rio Grande, based on an attempted settlement by La SaUe at the 
mouth of that river, but Spain occupied that country as far as the Sa- 
bine River and French settlements in that direction ended with 
Natchitoches. 

The United States claimed to the Rio Grande, also east of the 
Mississippi, south of the 31 of latitude, to the Perdido River, claim- 
ing that the original Province of Louisiana extended eastward to 
that river and if France was not in actual possession it yet had a 
possessory right when it made the cession to Spain in 1763, which 
Spain re-ceded in 1801, and which France ceded to the United States 
in 1803. Spain claimed that the French cession in 1763 embraced 
east of the Mississippi only the Island of New Orleans. The settle- 
ment of these disputed lines was not made until 1819. 

Oregon Country. With the extension of our domain to the Rocky 
Mountains the ownership of the Columbia Basin came into question. 
In 1792 a Boston ship had discovered the mouth of the Columbia. 
Immediately on the purchase of Louisiana the Government sent an 
expedition which not only reached the head-waters of the Missouri, 
but in 1805 crossed the mountains and followed the Columbia from 
its source to the sea. A settlement was made at its mouth in 1810. 

England and Spain both claimed the country by early discovery. 
In 1818 commissioners of England and the United States determined 
the boundary line from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Moun- 
tains on parallel 49 . Beyond the mountains the line was left in 



24 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

abeyance and the country open to settlers of both nations for ten 
years, which was afterward extended until definite lines were drawn 
in 1846. 

Florida Purchase. {Sec Map, 1821-1845.) In 1 819 a treaty was 
made with Spain, which was ratified two years later, February 19, 1821, 
settling the boundary between the two countries. The United States 
purchased Florida for five millions. The United States gave up all 
claims to Texas conditional upon Spain assigning to the United 
States all her title and claims to the Oregon country. The line be- 
tween the two countries was to be the Sabine River to latitude 32 , 
then due north to the Red River, west on the Red River to the 100th 
meridian, thence due north to the Arkansas River, west on that 
river to its utmost source, thence due north to the 42d parallel, 
thence due west to the Pacific Ocean. 

Texas Annexation. {See Map, 1845-1848.) In 1823 Mexico threw 
off the Spanish yoke and became a Republic. In 1835 Texas, then 
one of the Mexican States, declared its own freedom as " The Re- 
public of Texas." Ten years later, 1845, by petition it was admitted 
into the Union. 

Oregon. {See Map, 1845-1848.) With the acquisition of Texas 
came also our settlement of the Oregon question with England. 

At the time of the American Revolution (1776) Captain Cook was 
sent by England to visit New Albion, discovered by Drake in 1579, 
and to proceed north in search of a northeast passage to Hudson's 
Bay. It was upon these discoveries that England based her claim 
to Oregon. The United States claims were the discovery of the 
mouth of the Columbia by Gray, 1792, the exploration of the country 
by Lewis and Clark in 1805-6, the first settlement at Astoria in 
1810. 

Captain Cook touched no territory below 57 which had not pre- 
viously been explored by Spain and claimed by that power under 
the discoveries of Torrelo in 1542. Our title up to 1819 was there- 
fore good as against England for the basin of the Columbia. When, 
however, by our treaty with Spain (1819) we acquired her title, ours 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 2$ 

became a perfect one and embraced also the more northern claim of 
Spain. 

England demanded that the Columbia River be the dividing line. 
The American demand was " 54 40', or fight." When, however, Eng- 
land agreed to an extension of the line east of the mountains (49°) to 
the Pacific the Government assented rather than contend for territory 
of which they had little knowledge. The treaty was signed 1846. 

Mexican Cession of 1848. (See Map, 1848-1853.) The old Span- 
ish provinces of Texas and Coahuila were divided by the River 
Nueces. When Mexico established its independence of Spain, they 
were formed into the Mexican State of " Texas and Coahuila." 
Texas on establishing its independence in 1835 claimed the Rio 
Grande as its natural western boundary. Mexico claimed that only 
Texas, and not Coahuila, had revolted, and hence the Nueces River 
was the boundary. In 1845 the United States annexed Texas as 
bounded by the Rio Grande and at once took possession of that line. 
War with Mexico ensued. When peace was concluded in 1848 Mex- 
ico acknowledged the Rio Grande line and ceded to the United 
States the provinces of New Mexico and Upper California, embracing 
the Pacific highlands from the Gila River to the 42 parallel and 
from the Texas border and Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. 

Gadsden Purchase. (See Map, 1853-1889.) In 1853 Mexico sold 
to the United States the Mesilla Valley south of the Gila River for 
ten millions of dollars, known as the Gadsden purchase, Capt. 
Gadsden being the United States commissioner who negotiated the 
treaty. 

Alaska Purchase. (See Maps, 1853-1889.) Though the Zaltieri 
map of 1566, and those subsequent, showed the separation of America 
and Asia, there was no definite knowledge as to the width of the 
separation until 1728, when Behring sailed through the straits which 
have since borne his name. Four years later (1732)^ Russian fleet, 
being driven from the coast of Russia eastward, landed in Alaska and 
annexed it as part of the Russian Empire. This vast territory, em- 
bracing over half a million of square miles, the Aleutian Islands and 



26 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Behring Sea, Russia sold to the United States in 1868 for seven mil- 
lion of dollars. 

Its eastern boundary runs from latitude 54 40' ] due north along 
Portland Channel to the juncture of parallel 56 with the shore, 
thence along the summit of the mountains skirting the coast to the 
141st meridian, thence along that meridian to the Arctic Ocean. It 
includes in its jurisdiction the absolute control of Behring Sea. Tiie 
Yukon River system is, next to the Mississippi, the largest in North 
America. 

ORGANIZATION UNDER THE CONFEDERACY. 

Land Claims of the Original States. 

{See Map, 1783.) 

The United States commenced its career as an acknowledged 
government under a confederacy of States. This confederacy held 
jurisdiction over all east of the Mississippi, from the English posses- 
sions on the north and northeast to the Spanish possessions on the 
south. East of the Alleghanies was a confederacy of thirteen inde- 
pendent States, west of the Alleghanies an unsettled country, with 
here and there a military post. Duquesne well described it in a 
speech to the Indians in 1754, when he said, "Go see the forts that 
our king has established and you will see you can still hunt under 
their very walls ; they have been placed for your advantage in places 
which you frequent." To whom did this unsettled country belong ? 
How was it to be governed ? Each State claimed that its title by 
charter or grant rested in itself and could not be vested in the con- 
federacy without its own consent. Six of the States had well defined 
limits, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, and Maryland. Seven of them under the sea to sea char- 
ters laid claim to all the western country. 

Massachusetts, under its title of 1629, laid claim to all of the 

1 If the United States had sustained its 54 40' claim with England in settling the 
Oregon question she would now have possessed the entire Pacific coast north of Mexico. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 2J 

present State of New York west of the Delaware between 42° 2' and 
44 (44 being a line drawn west three miles north of the source of 
the west branch of the Merrimac) and all between the Great Lakes 
and the Mississippi from 42 2 to 43 15' (43 15' being a line drawn 
due west three miles north of the inflow of Lake Winnipiseogee, the 
eastern branch of the Merrimac. 1 

The Connecticut Claim was, under its charter of 1663, to all 
west of the Pennsylvania line between 41 ° and 42 2' and to the Mis- 
sissippi River. 

The Virginia Claim was to all between 36 30' and the Connecti- 
cut line, 42 2' cast of the Mississippi. Her claim was based on her 
charter of 1609," her treaty with the Iroquois in 1744, her conquest 
of the country during the Revolution, and by occupancy of the 
country by numbers of her citizens under the organized governments 
of Augusta, Kentucky, and Illinois Counties. 

North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia claimed to the 
Mississippi under the Carolina charter of 1665, to all between 36 30' 
and the Spanish line (31°), Georgia carrying her claim north to the 
line of the source of the Savannah River, and North Carolina hers 
south to the South Carolina line, thereby leaving South Carolina a 
strip only twelve miles wide. 

New York claimed that all lands west of the Delaware and all 
west of the Alleghany Mountains between the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers (claimed also by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia), 
were vested in the Crown and not in the Colonies, that the king, for- 
merly Duke of York, was proprietor of that province, that his treaty 
with the Six Nations and their tributaries in 1685, whereby they 
put themselves under his protection, and later, in 1726, conveyed all 
their lands in trust to the Crown, made all these lands a part of New 
York. 

1 Why Massachusetts claimed 43 15' in one case and 44° in the other I am unable to 
find explained. 

- Virginia's claim in reality covered also both the Massachusetts and Connecticut 
claims. 



28 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

These land claims promised to destroy the confederacy. The 
seven States who had extensive claims refused to give up their claims 
of jurisdiction and the six States with limited and denned boundaries 
maintained that territory conquered or defended by joint effort and 
at common expense should be held for the common benefit. Con- 
gress urged the States to cede to the Government their western claims 
and assign to Congress the exclusive right and power to lay out such 
land " into separate and independent States from time to time, as the 
numbers and circumstances of the people thereof may require." 

Land Cessions. 

(See Map, 1787.) 

New York first responded in 1780, by ceding" to the general 
Government all titles acquired by treaties with the Six Nations 
north of the 45 ° parallel of latitude and westward of a meridian line 
drawn through the western bend of Lake Erie, or westward of a 
meridian line 20 miles west of the most westerly bend of Niagara 
River, provided that the former should not be found to fall that 
distance beyond said river." Congress accepted it in 1782. 

Virginia ceded all her claims northwest of the Ohio River, reserv- 
ing only, as military bounty lands, the country between the Scioto and 
Little Miami in the present State of Ohio. The cession bears date 
1784. 

Massachusetts ceded in 1784, and Congress accepted in 1785, all 
her lands west of the New York line. Her claim that fell within the 
limits of the present State of New York was adjusted with that State 
in 1786, by a meridian line 82 miles west of the Delaware from the 
Pennsylvania line to Lake Ontario. Beyond this line New York 
yielded a right to the soil, and Massachusetts the right of sovereignty. 

The Connecticut Cession in 1786 embraced the soil between 41 
and 42 12' west of a meridian 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania 
line. To that portion between the Pennsylvania line and the 120 mile 
meridian, known as the "Western Reserve of Connecticut," she re- 
tained the right of soil but surrendered that of jurisdiction. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 29 

South Carolina in 1787 ceded the twelve-mile strip running from 
the source of the Savannah River to the Mississippi. 

Original Public Domain. 

{See Map, 1787.) 

These cessions, with a small section in the present State of Maine 
lying outside of the Sir Gorges and Sir Alexander grants, purchased 
by Massachusetts, but inside the treaty line with England, consti- 
tuted the original public domain (1787). 

Territory Northwest of the Ohio River. {See Map, 1790.) Con- 
gress now passed (July 13, 1787) an ordinance organizing all the 
territory between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and the Great Lakes 
into the Territory Northwest of the Ohio River, providing for its 
future division into not more than five nor less than three States, and 
establishing lines for those States. One, to be bounded east by the 
Pennsylvania line, south by the Ohio, west by a meridian line drawn 
from the mouth of the Great Miami to the border line. The second, 
from the last described line on the east, the Ohio on the south and 
west to the Wabash River, and a line due north from Port Vincent to 
the border. The third that portion between the last mentioned line 
and the Mississippi. Authority was reserved to make two States in 
that part of the territory north of a parallel passing through the 
southernmost point of Lake Michigan. 

Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were afterward made on these lines 
and Michigan and Wisconsin lie wholly north of the provisional lati- 
tude. The ordinance prohibited slavery in the Territory after the 
year 1800. The small section between Lake Erie, the New York and 
Pennsylvania lines, was sold by Congress to the State of Pennsyl- 
vania, thereby giving that State a port on Lake Erie. 

Territory Southwest of the Ohio River. {See Map, 1790.) In 
1789 North Carolina ceded to the Government the territory com- 
prised in the present State of Tennessee, with the proviso that no 
laws should be enacted prohibiting slavery. 

Congress accepted the cession and organized it with the twelve- 



30 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mile strip received from South Carolina into the " Territory South- 
west of the Ohio River."' 

DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 

Adoption of a Federal Constitution. The powers conferred 
upon Congress by the confederacy as organized proving inadequate 
to the public needs, a convention met in 1787, and drafted a new Con- 
stitution constituting a Federal Government. That Constitution 
(the same we now have, excepting amendments) was submitted to 
Congress and by it referred to conventions of the various States for 
adoption or rejection. If nine States gave their adherence, then it 
was to be considered in force as far as those nine States were con- 
cerned. 

The adoptions came as follows (see Map, 1790) : Delaware, De- 
cember 7, 1787 ; Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787 ; New Jersey, De- 
cember, 18, 1787 ; Georgia, January 2, 1788 ; Connecticut, January 9, 
1788; Massachusetts, February 7, 1788; Maryland, April 28, 1788; 
South Carolina, May 23, 1788 ; New Hampshire, June 21, 1788 ; Vir- 
ginia, June 26, 1788 ; New York, July 26, 1788. Eleven States had 
now ratified the Constitution. So, April 30, 1789, the new Govern- 
ment was formally organized by the inauguration of its first Presi- 
dent in New York City. North Carolina adopted the Constitution 
November 21, 1789, and Rhode Island, May 29, 1790. 

District of Columbia. With the organization of the Government 
it became necessary that Congress should have a permanent home. 
All agreed that it should be centrally located, but sectional jealousies 
made the choice of a place difficult. The Constitution empowered 
Congress "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatever 
over such district (not exceeding ten miles square), as may by ces- 
sion of particular States and the acceptance of Congress become the 
seat of Government of the United States." 

During the first session of Congress, the Federalists, in considera- 
tion of two votes by Virginia members to carry an important finan- 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 3 1 

cial measure, voted that, after remaining ten years in Philadelphia, 
the seat of the Government should be permanently located on the 
Potomac. 

Maryland, by Act of December 23, 1788, ceded to Congress a tract 
ten miles square. Virginia on December 3, 1789, did likewise. By 
Act of July 16, 1790, Congress accepted the Maryland cession and 
after December, 1800, it became the seat of the Federal Government. 

Congress assumed exclusive jurisdiction February 27, 1801. In 
1846 the tract ceded by Virginia was retroceded to that State. 

Vermont. (See Map, 1800.) Since the Revolution Vermont, for- 
merly known as the " New Hampshire Grants," but which claimed to 
be an independent republic, had been applying for admission as a 
State. Its claims were opposed by New York and New Hampshire 
'and by the Southern States, who did not wish to increase the New 
England influence. It was supported by Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut, from hostility to New York, and by the smaller States with 
definite boundaries as likely to add one more to their number. In 
March 4, 1791, Congress admitted the State, thereby for the first time 
asserting its right to settle disputes among States. 

Kentucky was settled by Virginians, just prior to the Revolution, 
passing through the natural highway made by the Cumberland Gap. 
In 1776 it was organized into the County of Kentucky and as such 
remained a part of Virginia when that State ceded its lands north of 
the Ohio to the general Government. In February, 1791, Congress 
provided for its admission as a State. On June 1, 1792, a Constitu- 
tion was formed and on that date it became the fifteenth State of the 
Union. 

Tennessee (see Map, 1800) was formed from the North Caro- 
lina cession of 1789 and admitted as a State June 1, 1796, with a 
Constitution which was never submitted to a popular vote, but which 
Jefferson pronounced " the most republican yet formed in America." 
The South Carolina cession, which had been united to it as part of 
the "Territory Southwest of the Ohio " was again separated as the 
Territory South of Tennessee. 



32 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Georgia Cession. Georgia was the last State to make its ces- 
sion of lands to tiie Government. In 1788 she offered to cede to the 
United States that portion of the former British Province of West 
Florida north of the thirty-first parallel and which was in dispute 
between the United States and Spain, but Congress declined to re- 
ceive it until 179S. In 1802 she ceded her claims to all remaining 
territory west of her present limits. 

Mississippi Territory. [See Maps, 1800 and 1S10.) On the accept- 
ance of the first Georgia cession in 1798 the Government organized 
it into the Mississippi Territory, subsequently adding the later ces- 
sion of 1802 and the Territory South of Tennessee excepting such 
portion as lay east of the present western boundary of Georgia which 
the United States ceded to that State. 

Indiana Territory. (See Maps, 1800 and 1810.) By Act of Con- 
gress, passed May 7, 1800, the territory northwest of the Ohio was di- 
vided. After July 1st, all that portion lying west of a line from the 
Ohio River to Fort Recovery (known as the Treaty line of 1795), 
thence by a meridian line to the international border, was constituted 
into Indiana Territory. When Ohio became a State in 1802 all the 
Northwest territory north of the Ohio line was added. For one 
year, 1804 to 1805, after the purchase of the Province of Louisiana 
from France, and until it was independently organized, all that ter- 
ritory north of the Territory of Orleans, extending to the Rocky 
Mountains, was included in its jurisdiction. In 1805 Michigan Ter- 
ritory, embracing all between Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, 
was taken from it, and in 1809 Illinois Territory was separated by a 
line following the Wabash River to Vincennes and thence by a me- 
ridian line due north to the international line. 

Ohio. (See Map, 1810.) In 1802 Congress passed its first " En- 
abling Act," authorizing the inhabitants of the eastern portion of the 
Territory Northwest of the Ohio to make a Constitution, republican 
in form, in accord with the ordinance of 1787, and to organize a State 
government, the boundaries of the State to be : East, the Penn- 
svlvania line; south, the Ohio River; west, the meridian of the 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 33 

mouth of the great Miami River; north, the latitudinal line pass- 
ing through the southern point of Lake Michigan. Congress re- 
served the right to add the balance of the Northwest Territory, north 
of the limits of the State, or to dispose of it as it should think best. 
A Convention was called, a Constitution formed, with the proviso- 
that if the latitudinal line from the most southern point of Lake 
Michigan to the boundary line did not touch Lake Erie, or touched 
it east of the mouth of the Maumee River, then the northern bound- 
ary should be a line from the most northern cape of Maumee Bay to 
the meridian line. This Constitution was never submitted to the 
people, nor was the State ever formally admitted, but an Act on Feb- 
ruary 19, 1803, declared that by the formation of a Constitution it 
had became one of the United States of America. 

Michigan Territory of 1805 was made from the Northwest Ter- 
ritory remaining north of the Ohio line, and that portion of Indiana 
Territory lying north of the parallel passing through the most 
southern extremity of Lake Michigan and east of Lake Michigan. 

Territory of Orleans. {See Map, 1810.) On the acquisition of the 
Province of Louisiana from France in 1803 Congress organized that 
portion at the mouth of the Mississippi River into the Territory of 
Orleans, bounded south by the Gulf of Mexico, west by the Sabine 
River to latitude 32 and thence north to parallel 35°, north and east 
by parallel $$° from the Spanish line to the Mississippi, thence down 
that river to the 31 parallel, thence east to the Perdido River (bound- 
ary of Spanish Florida), thence down that river to the Gulf of Mexico. 

The District of Louisiana comprised the balance of the French 
purchase. In 1804 it was attached to Indian Territory, but the fol- 
lowing year (1805) was organized into Louisiana Territory. 

The Territory of Illinois {see Map, 1810) was made in 1809 from 
Indiana Territory. It embraced all that portion of the Territory North- 
west of the Ohio River organized under the Ordinance of 1787, west 
of the Wabash River and a meridian line drawn from Vincennes to 
the international line. 

The State of Louisiana {see Map, 1820) was made from the Ter- 
3 



34 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ritory of Orleans in 1812, and at first embraced all that portion west 
of the Mississippi River, and the Island of New Orleans, to which the 
section south of parallel 3 1° and west of the Pearl River was subse- 
quently added. The Territory of Louisiana was then renamed the 
Territory of Missouri. 

The closing years of this decade (1810-1820) saw four more new 
States in the Union, two free and two slave. 

Indiana was admitted December 11, 1816, with east, south, and 
west boundaries the same as those of the Territory ; on the north, 
however, the line was run on a parallel ten miles north of the extreme 
southern point of Lake Michigan. 

Illinois shortly followed, on December 3, 1818, bounded on east, 
south, and west by Indiana, the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers respect- 
ively, north by the parallel 42 30' from Lake Michigan to the 
Mississippi River. v 

The three Northern States bordering on the Ohio, contemplated by 
the Ordinance of 1787, had now been admitted, with east and west 
boundaries as originally provided, but in no one case had their north- 
ern boundaries been in accord with the line of 1787, which was lati- 
tude 41 ° 37'. That line would have cut off each of these States from 
the Lakes. Had it been adhered to it would have materially changed 
the history of the nation by sundering the natural geographical con- 
nections of these States with the East by way of the Lakes, turning 
their commerce, interests, and sympathies toward the Gulf. 

Alabama and Mississippi. {See Map, 1820.) On the alternate 
years with the admission of the States north of the Ohio there were 
added at the south the two States of Mississippi (181 7) and Alabama 
(1819), made by dividing Mississippi Territory by a north and south 
line equally distant from the Georgia line, and the Perdido River on 
the east, and the Mississippi and Pearl Rivers on the west. 

The Territory of Arkansas in 1819 was taken from the Territory 
of Missouri, and comprises the section on the west bank of the Mis- 
sissippi between latitudes s?,° and 36 30' west, to meridian 94 42'. 

Maine. {See Map, 1820). In 1820 the District of Maine applied 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 35 

fur permission to organize a State government. The Act admitting it 
was part of the famous Missouri Compromise. The State, as con- 
stituted, contained that part of Massachusetts embraced in the Sir 
Gorges grant, between the Piscataqua and Kennebec Rivers, extend- 
ing one hundred and twenty miles inland, and the Sir Alexander 
grant (Pemaquid), between the Kennebec and the St. Croix Rivers, 
and " that portion west of the River Kennebec and north of a right 
line connecting the confluence of the Kennebec and Dead Rivers with 
Lake Umbagog. This appears never to have been in the Province 
of Maine, or Massachusetts Bay, or State of Massachusetts." ' 

Missouri. (See Map, 1830.) In 181 9 an Enabling Act was 
brought forward for the State of Missouri, but an amendment pro- 
hibiting slavery being attached, it failed to pass. This opened the 
great Slavery Contest. Professor Alexander Johnston thus aptly de- 
scribes the situation : "While the Union was. confined to the fringe 
of States along the Atlantic coast the slavery question was not 
troublesome ; and it was at first possible to unite the representatives 
of both sections in the admission of new States by using the Ohio as 
a dividing line between the States in which slavery should be pro- 
hibited and those in which it should be allowed. But when the tide 
of emigration had crossed the Mississippi and began to fill the Louis- 
iana Purchase, conflict was inevitable, for the line was lost." 

Maine having applied for admission was refused unless Missouri 
was admitted with slavery. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was 
effected, and an act passed permitting Missouri to form a Constitu- 
tion and to admittance with the following boundaries : East the Mis- 
sissippi, west the meridian 94 42' passing through the confluence of 
the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, north parallel 40 30', south parallel 
36 30', the famous line north of which the compromise prohibited 
slavery in any other territory forever. The Act of admission bears 
date August 10, 1821. In 1846, on the admission of Iowa, the section 

1 " If this view be correct, then this tract was a parcel of the original public land of 
the United States, as denned by treaty with Great Britain." — Francis R. Walker, in 
Seventh U. S. Census. 



36 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

between the above west line, the Iowa line, and the Missouri River 
Avas added. 

Territory of Florida. On the signing of the Treaty with Spain in 
182 1 and the acquisition of East and West Florida it was organized 
into the Territory of Florida with the limits of the present State. 

Michigan Territory. (See Maps, 1820-1830.) Michigan Territory, 
when first created in 1805, embraced the section between Lakes Erie, 
Huron, and Michigan. On the entrance of Illinois as a State, in 1818, 
all that portion of Illinois Territory north of 42 30' extending west 
to the Mississippi was added to Michigan Territory. In 1834, when 
Missouri Territory lost its nominal existence, all that portion north 
of the State of Missouri, west to the Missouri and White Earth Rivers 
and north to the international line was also added. 

State of Michigan. (See Map, 1840.) In 1835 the people of 
Michigan, in convention assembled, formed and ratified a Constitu- 
tion and applied for admission. It was admitted June 15, 1836, with 
its present limits, a strip from its southern border on Lake Erie, to 
conform with the Indiana line, being given to Ohio, and the upper 
peninsular or Lake Superior country being given to it in compen- 
sation. The first settlement in the west made by the French was in 
this State (1629) but owing to the shorter lines of travel from the 
Atlantic States the States along the Ohio filled more rapidly, and 
thus it happened that two hundred years elapsed before Michigan 
took her place as a State in the Union. 

Arkansas. The same Act (June 15, 1836) that admitted Mich- 
igan as a free State also admitted Arkansas as a slave State with the 
same limits as when a Territory. 

Territory of Wisconsin. (See Map, 1840.) On the admission of 
Michigan as a State the balance of the Territory was formed into 
Wisconsin Territory (1836) but two years later (1838) Iowa Terri- 
tory was set off, comprising that portion west of the Mississippi and 
east of the Missouri. In 1846 Iowa Territory was reduced by the 
formation of the State of Iowa, and in 1848 it was united with a part 
of Wisconsin Territory in forming Minnesota Territory. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. tf 

Indian Country. {West half of the U. S. in 1840.) As the States 
east of the Mississippi filled up, the Government adopted the plan of 
transporting the Indian tribes to specified reservations west of the 
Mississippi. By Act of June 30, 1834, to regulate trade with the 
Indians, all the territory west of the Mississippi not included in 
the States of Missouri and Territory of Arkansas was denominated 
the Indian Country, a geographical but not an organized political 
division. From this wide area, as emigration pressed westward, 
Territories have successively been formed until, on the formation of 
Kansas and Nebraska in 1854, it was limited to the present limits of 
the Indian Territory. 

Iowa {Map, 1850), without authorization by Congress, formed 
a Constitution, applied and was admitted in 1845, bounded east 
by the Mississippi, south by parallel 40 30', west by a continuation 
of the meridian drawn through the confluence of the Missouri and 
Kansas Rivers, north by the 44 parallel from the Mississippi to the 
Minnesota River, thence up that river until it intercepts the western 
meridian line. Disputes arising, however, regarding its boundaries, 
a new Constitution was formed, accepted, and the State finally ad- 
mitted, December 28, 1846, with its present limits extending to the 
Missouri River in compensation for territory lost on its northern bor- 
der. North line is 43 30'. 

Florida. The same Act admitting Iowa March 3, 1845, ulso 'Ad- 
mitted Florida, thereby keeping the balance between free and slave 
States. 

Wisconsin. {See Map, 1850.) The last of the five States contem- 
plated in the original Ordinance of 1787 was admitted May 29, 1848. 
According to that ordinance her northwest boundary should have ex- 
tended to the source of the Mississippi and the international bound- 
ary line, but geographical influences were at work. The line was 
drawn up the St. Croix, and the inhabitants who had come up and 
settled on both sides of the Upper Mississippi, whose interests were 
one, were united politically as well as socially. 

Minnesota Territory. On the admission of Wisconsin in 1848 the 



38 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

balance of the Territory was united with that of Iowa Territory, and 
the whole named Minnesota Territory, extending from the Wisconsin 
line to the Missouri River and from the Iowa line (43 30') to the 
national boundary. 

Texas. (See Maps, 1840 and 1850.) In 1844 a resolution passed 
Congress to admit Texas, prohibiting slavery in States formed from 
the Territory of Texas north of the Missouri compromise line, 36 30', 
and leaving it to the people themselves to decide whether it should 
exist south of that line. Texas accepted the annexation both by her 
own Congress and by a popular convention. On December 29, 1845, 
Texas became a State of the Union with the limits of the Republic 
of Texas, bounded east and north by the Treaty line with Spain in 
182 1 to the source of the Arkansas River, on the south and west by 
the Gulf of Mexico, the Rio Grande to its source, and thence due 
north to the junction of the Arkansas River. It comprised parts of 
the present States of Kansas and Colorado, of the Territory of New 
Mexico and " No Man's Land." In 1850 such portions were ceded 
to the United States for a consideration. Southern statesmanship, 
by colonization, revolution, and annexation, thus added to the South- 
ern group of States territory to equalize that acquired by the Louis- 
iana purchase lying north of $6° 30', in which by the compromise of 
1S20 slavery was not to exist. Afterward, on the acquisition of 
Oregon, the Mexican War was provoked and the latitudinal limits of 
the Southern group carried to the Pacific Coast. Nevertheless, 
Texas was the last Slave State added to the Union. 

Territory of Oregon. (See Map, 1854.) In 1846, after the estab- 
lishment of the international boundary line a bill was offered in Con- 
gress to organize all that portion west of the Rocky Mountains be- 
tween parallels 42 and 49 into the Territory of Oregon. Because 
the Wilmot Proviso ' was attached to the bill, it was not until 1848 
that such organization was accomplished. 

1 The Wilmot Proviso, named after Mr. Wilmot, Member of Congress from Pennsyl- 
vania, was a bill providing that the provision regarding slavery in the ordinance of 17S7 
whereby "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 39 

California. (See Map, 1854.) In 1849 Congress began legisla- 
tion looking to the establishment of settled governments for the ter- 
ritory acquired from Mexico. A fierce contest arose over the slavery- 
question. The next year, under what is known as the " Compromise 
of 1850," an omnibus bill was passed, providing governments for Cali- 
fornia, Utah, and New Mexico, leaving to each the right to decide 
upon the slavery question for themselves. The population of Cali- 
fornia had increased so rapidly during the excitement following the 
discovery of gold in 1849 that the people called a convention, formed 
a State Government and, adopting a Constitution prohibiting slavery, 
were admitted September 9, 1850, without having been under a Ter- 
ritorial government. Its prescribed limits are the 42 parallel from 
the Pacific Ocean to the 120 meridian, thence south on said meridian 
to the thirty-ninth parallel of latitude, thence by a straight line, to 
the intersection of the thirty-fifth parallel and the Colorado River, 
thence down that river to the mouth of the Gila River, thence west 
by the Mexican boundary line to the Pacific Ocean. 

The Territory of Utah (see Map, 1854) was organized, embracing 
all west of the Rocky Mountains received of Mexico between paral- 
lels 37 and 42 to the California line. Subsequently Nevada and 
parts of Colorado and Wyoming were taken from it. 

The Territory of New Mexico was organized, embracing all that 
portion received of Mexico between the Rio Grande and the Cali- 
fornia line south of the thirty-seventh parallel of latitude, and also 
that portion of the Texas cession of 1850 bounded east by the 103 
meridian and north by the thirty-eighth parallel, west by the Rio 
Grande and south by the thirty-second parallel. To this in 1853 was 
added the strip south of the Gila River acquired by the Gadsden 
purchase. 

Kansas and Nebraska Territory. (See Map, 1854.) Emigration 
was now pushing very rapidly westward. Long trains of settlers 
were moving into the Arkansas and Platte Valleys, and through them 

territory except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted " should apply 
to all newly acquired territory. 



40 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to Oregon and California. In 1851 the inhabitants of the Platte 
country applied for organization as a Territory, but the request was 
not acted upon. In 1852 a bill was introduced into Congress to the 
same effect. Being on the eve of a presidential election it again 
failed. In 1854 (January 23), the Southern or slavery element, being 
sure of its strength, introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, providing 
for two territories between the Missouri River and the Rocky Moun- 
tains ; one west of Missouri between parallels 37 and 40 to be 
called Kansas, and the other north of latitude 40 to be called Ne- 
braska. The bill also repudiated as unconstitutional and repealed 
the Missouri Compromise of 1820, whereby slavery was forever pro- 
hibited north of latitude 36 30', and provided that hereafter any Ter- 
ritory was free to admit or exclude slavery as its inhabitants saw fit. 
The bill passed and the Territories were organized. On the forma- 
tion of Dakota {see Map, 1861) and Colorado, Nebraska ceded to the 
former all north of parallel 43 , and to the latter the section between 
latitude 40 and4i° and meridians 102 and 106 , receiving, however, 
a section west of the Rocky Mountains from Washington and Utah, 
between latitudes 41 and 43 west to the no° meridian. On the 
formation of Idaho in 1863 all north of the forty-first parallel and 
west of the 104 meridian was given to that Territory. 

Washington Territory. {See Map, 1861.) In 1853 Oregon Ter- 
ritory was divided. That portion north of the Columbia River and 
parallel 46 , and east of the Lewis River and meridian 117 , extend- 
ing to the international boundary (49 ) and the Rocky Mountains, was 
organized into Washington Territory. Subsequently this section was 
also divided; all east of the 117 meridian being included in Idaho 
when it was organized (1863). 

Oregon, in 1858, through a convention organized under direction 
of the Territorial Legislature, formed a Constitution which was ac- 
cepted by Congress and February 14, 1859, it became a State. 

Minnesota, with limits consisting of so much of the Territory ly- 
ing east of the Red River of the North, had, with the extension of 
railways, been rapidly increasing its population until now she was 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 41 

entitled to admission as a State. A Constitution prohibiting slavery 
was formed and the State admitted, May 11, 1858. 

Kansas. (See Maps, 1854-1861.) Upon the organization of the 
Territory in 1854, under an act leaving the slavery question to the 
decision of the Territorial Legislature, a long struggle began, most 
bitter, as it was the last legal contest to establish slavery in new 
territory. In 1858 Congress passed a bill admitting Kansas as a 
State under the Lecompton Constitution, providing, however, that 
the clause making slavery legal should be again submitted to the 
people. In July, 1859, the representatives of the people, in conven- 
tion at Wyandot, formed and adopted a new Constitution prohibiting 
slavery. The slavery party now declared that neither Congress nor 
Territorial Legislatures had a right to prohibit slavery, and the ques- 
tion was carried into the presidential election of i860. The result of 
the election being in favor of the anti-slavery party the Southern 
members withdrew from Congress. Congress then admitted Kansas 
as a free State by act bearing date January 29, 1861, with a western 
limit of the 102 meridian. 

Colorado Territory. The same Congress (1861) that admitted 
Kansas organized also the Territory of Colorado, consisting of por- 
tions of the Territories of Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Utah, 
lying on both sides of the Rocky Mountains between parallels 37 
and 41 , and meridians 102 and 109 . 

Dakota Territory (see Maps, 1861-1870) was also made in 1861. 
It included all of Nebraska Territory north from parallel 43 and 
that portion of Minnesota Territory west of the Red River of the 
North which was not organized into a State Government in 1858. 

In 1863 part of this large area, viz. : that portion west of meridian 
104 was set off to form the Territory of Idaho. The following year 
(1864) she received again from Idaho the portion between parallels 
43 and 45 and meridians 104 and 111 and an additional section 
between parallels 41 and 43 and meridians 104 and no only to 
transfer them again in 1868 to Wyoming Territory. 

Nevada (see Map, 1870) was organized as a Territory in 1861, 



42 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and comprised that portion of Utah west of meridian 115 . On 
October 31, 1864, it was admitted as a State, when to its Territorial 
limits was added on the east another degree of longitude and a sec- 
tion from the Territory of Arizona bounded north by the 37 paral- 
lel, south and west by the California line, east by the Colorado River 
and meridian 114 . 

The Southern Confederacy. (See Map.) When the representa- 
tives of the slave-holding States withdrew from Congress in 1861, the 
States they represented proceeded at once to pass acts of secession 
from the Federal Union and to establish a Southern Confederacy. 
Eleven States, comprising an immense territory, passed Acts of 
Secession. The Constitution recognizing no power of States to se- 
cede, Congress proclaimed these States in rebellion and proceeded to 
employ coercive measures. West Virginia (see Map, 1863) counties 
refused to be bound by the Ordinance of Secession passed by Vir- 
ginia. Forming a legislature, which they claimed to be the real ex- 
ecutive body, they gave the assent required by the Constitution to 
the organization of a new State, and applied for admission as West 
Virginia. Congress recognized their action and the State was ad- 
mitted June 19, 1863. 

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, issued as a 
military necessity, proclaiming freedom to all slaves, went into effect, 
and it was confirmed forever by an Amendment to the Constitution 
(XHIth) adopted and ratified in 1865. Two more Amendments 
were afterward adopted to protect the rights of the freed men and 
admitting them to citizenship. 

After the fall of the Confederacy the Government proceeded to 
promote efficient governments for the insurrectionary States, stipu- 
lating how they might be re-admitted to the active exercise of State- 
hood on the ratification of Constitutions accepting the new Constitu- 
tional Amendments. Tennessee was the first re-admitted, July 24, 
1866. Arkansas the next, June 22, 1868. North and South Carolina, 
Louisiana and Florida followed during the year, but Virginia, Mis- 
sissippi, Texas, and Georgia did not follow until 1870. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 43 

Arizona Territory (see Map, 1870) was organized as a Territory Feb- 
ruary 24, 1863. As first constituted it embraced all that portion of 
the Territory of New Mexico lying north of the Gila River and west of 
the 109 meridian, subsequently that portion of the Mesilla Valley 
south of the Gila, west of the same meridian was included. On the 
admission of Nevada as a State in 1864, it lost the small section west 
of the Colorado River and meridian 114 , which was included in that 
new State. 

Idaho Territory. Discoveries of gold in the Rocky and Bitter 
Root Mountains, in 1862, caused an influx of population and the 
formation of a Territorial government, March 3, 1863. Idaho, as 
the new Territory was named, was taken from the Territories of Da- 
kota and Washington. Its original boundaries were : north the inter- 
national line (49°) from meridians 104 to 117 , thence south by merid- 
ian 1 1 7 to parallel 42 , thence east to meridian no, thence south to 
parallel 41 °, thence east to meridian 104 , thence to latitude 49 . 
When the Territory of Montana was formed in 1864, it was wholly 
taken from this Territory, and the same year the balance of her terri- 
tory east of the Rocky Mountains was reunited to Dakota, while on 
the formation of Wyoming in 1868, she contributed also a small sec- 
tion west of the mountains and east of the ni° meridian. As now 
constituted it lies between the Rocky and Bitter Root Mountains 
and the 117 meridian and stretches from parallel 42 to 49 . 

Montana Territory, taken wholly from Idaho, was organized 
under a Territorial government, May 26, 1864. It is bounded 
north by the international boundary line, east by the 104 meridian, 
south by tiie 45 parallel to the in° meridian, southward on that 
meridian to its junction with the Rocky Mountains (about 40 ), west 
by the Rocky and Bitter Root Mountains and meridian n 6° to par- 
allel 49 . 

Wyoming Territory. On July 25, 1868, Congress passed an Act 
forming a new Territory called Wyoming, lying between parallels of 
latitude 41 to 45 and from meridians 104 to ni°, from portions of 
Nebraska, Dakota, Idaho, and Utah. 



44 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In the Northwest corner of the Territory is the Yellowstone Park, 
a National Reservation. 

Nebraska. (See Map, 1870.) Though formed as a Territory at 
the same time as Kansas, it did not become a State until much later. 
First, the slavery question turned emigration to the more southerly 
State, then the war stopped it almost entirely. After the completion 
of the Central Pacific Railroad, however, the fertile lands of the 
Platte River attracted settlers, and a prosperous Commonwealth ap- 
plied for admission as a State. By Act of Congress it became a 
State, March 1, 1867, the bill being passed over the President's 
(Johnson) veto. As constituted it has the Missouri River for its 
easterly' boundary, the 104 meridian for its western line, the 43 par- 
allel on the north, and the 40 parallel on the south from the Mis- 
souri River to the 102 meridian, thence the line runs north to the 41 ° 
parallel, thence west to the 104 meridian. 

Colorado. The discovery of gold east of the Rocky Mountains 
quickly brought a population entitling Colorado to admission as 
"The Centennial State." Congress passed an Enabling Act. A 
State Constitution was formed, submitted, and ratified by a popular 
vote July 1, 1876. As provided in the Act, the President, one month 
later, August 1, 1876, announced the admission of Colorado to the 
Union without further legislation. 

Washington, Montana, North and South Dakota (See Map, 
1S90), with large and newly developed lumber, mining, and agricul- 
tural interests, now attained a population capable of self-government, 
and applied for admission. This was not granted, however, until 
after the Presidential election of 1888. An Enabling Act was passed 
by Congress, February, 1889, whereby the Territories of Washington, 
Montana, and Dakota are authorized to organize as States, July 1, 
1889. Washington and Montana with their present limits, Dakota to 
be divided into North and South Dakota by an east and west line on 
the seventh range, State Survey. 



INDEX. 



Alabama, 34 
Alaska, 25 
Arizona, 43 
Arkansas Territory, 34 

State of, 36 
Augusta County (Va.), 12, 13 

California, 39 
Canada, 2, 15, 17 
Carolana, 9 
Carolina, North, 11, 27 

South, 11, 27, 29 
Cherokee Nation, 16, 17 
Colorado Territory, 41 

State of, 44 
Columbia, District of,. 30 
Confederacy of 1775-1787, 26 

Southern, 42 
Connecticut, 8, 13, 15, 18, 27, 
Culpepper's Grant, 9 

Dakota Territory, 41 

State of North, 44 
" South, 44 

Declaration of Independence, 

Rights, 20 
Declaratory Act, 20 
Delaware, 10, 11, 13 

England, 5, 16, 17 

Federal Constitution, 30 
Florida, Spanish and English, 

Territory, 36 
State of, 27 



16, 17, 

21, 24 



France, 5, 15, 16, 22 

Gadsden Purchase, 25 
Georgia, 11, 17, 27, 32 
Gorges Grant, 8, 14 

Hampshire Grants, 18 

Idaho, 43 

Illinois Country, 15 

County, 21 

Territory, 33 

State of, 34 
Indian Country, 32, y] 
Indiana Territory, 15 

State of, 34 
Iowa Territory, 36 

State of, yj 
Iroquois Nation, 6, 13, 16, 17 

Kansas Territory, 39 

State of, 41 
Kentucky, County of, 18 

State of, 31 
King's Prerogative, 19 

Land Cessions, 28, 29, 32 

Claims, 26, 27 
London Company, 5 
Louisiana Province, 15, 22, 23 

District of, ^3 

Territory, ^^ 

State of, ^y 

Maine, District of, 7, 8, 21, 2: 
State of, 34, 35 



46 



INDEX. 



Maryland, 10, 13 
Massachusetts, 7, 14, 20, 26, 28 
Mexican Cession, 25 
Mexico, 3 
Michigan Territory, 33, 36 

State of, 36 
Minnesota Territory, 37 

State of, 40 
Mississippi Territory, 32 

State of, 34 
Missouri Territory, 34 

State of, 35 

Navigation Laws, 19 
Nebraska Territory, 39 

State of, 44 
Nevada, 41 
New England, 5, 7 
New France, 15 
New Hampshire, 7, 14 
New Jersey, 10, 13 
New Mexico, 3, 39 
New Netherlands, 6 
New Sweden, 6 
New York, 10, 13, 27, 28 
North Carolina, 11, 27 
North Dakota, 44 
Northwest Territory, 29 
Nova Scotia, 3, 14, 21 

Ohio, 16, 32 

Oregon Country, 23, 24 

Territory, 38 

State of, 40 
Orleans Territory, 33 

Paris, First Treaty of, 16 

Second Treaty of, 21 
Pemaquid, 7, 14 



Pennsylvania, 12, 18 
Plymouth Council, 5, 8 

Colony, 5, 7, 14 
Property Line, 17 
Public Domain, Original, 29 

Quebec Act, 17, 22 

Province of, 17 

Rhode Island, 8, 14 

South Carolina, ii, 27, 29 
South Dakota, 44 
Southern Confederacy, 42 
Southwest Territory, 29 
Spain, 3, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24 

Tennessee, 31 
Texas, 23, 24, 38 
Treaty of Paris, First, 16 

Second, 21 
with Spain, 23, 24 
Mexico, 25 
France, 22 

Utah, 39 

Vermont, 18, 31 

Virginia, 5, 9, 12, 18, 27, 28 

Washington Territory, 40 
State of, 44 

Westmoreland, County of, 18 

West Virginia, 42 

Wisconsin County, 15 

Territory, 36 
State of, 2,7 

Writs of Assistance, 20 

Wyoming, 43 



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